stranger danger
by ivory bones
Summary: Kind of like floating one second then crashing headfirst onto the concrete floor the next, y'know? —kaneki.


**disclaimer: **i own nothing.

**a/n: **the word hiatus got thrown out of my dictionary.

**warnings: **language.

**. . .**

Kaneki Ken is ignorant.

(Just like everybody else when it doesn't matter.)

And maybe has a tad bit of shitty luck.

**. . .**

Initially, what he saw sitting on the wooden chair in a new coffee shop he had encountered a few days ago was an ordinary-though-not-really girl. Exceptionally pretty, flawlessly elegant when she walks with her skirts swishing around her calves and, like any other young males would think, _normal_.

He notices that she orders coffee (no sugar at all), without fail. Then moments later, when the waitress or waiter leaves with her order, opens her bag to grab a book that she would read for hours on end, with him feeling delighted when he finds that it is a title he knows and intrigued when he doesn't. Sometimes he has to go before her. Sometimes it's the opposite.

And somewhere along the way of his silent, absolutely laughable admiration, he realizes that he _likes_ her.

(It's a stupid mistake that he wants to strangle himself for.)

The day she agrees for a small date (small, almost insignificant, but a date nonetheless), he thinks his heart would burst with joy.

And oh, his organs did _burst_ alright. Thankfully, it wasn't his heart. He would've been lying there, choking on his own blood and regrets like a pile of several-days-old trash by the roadside if it was. Though he may even be dead and gone before he could even try suffocating.

(Actually, Rize should've done him a favor and pierced his heart right then and there so he wouldn't be living a fucking miserable life.)

After that, she died—leaving him with stitches on his side and her organ as a parasite inside his own damned body.

After that, he became something not wholly inhuman.

**. . .**

He wears an eye patch to cover what he secretly calls his cursed eye.

It's like a camouflage—hiding the monstrosity that is himself, of what he has become, from others, from everyone—trying desperately to imitate a chameleon and _blend_ into the surroundings to become completely, utterly unnoticeable.

(Later he will obtain a mask to disguise himself when he _embraces_ the monster.)

Though that itself is useless when he's hungryhungry_starving_ and the smell of meat_flesh_meat is in the air, enticing him, causing his stomach to roar and demand like a rabid beast, urging him to sink his claws into skin and _feast _on his prey whole because they smell _so, so very good_—

And he forcefully pulls himself out of sick, _sick_ temptation—gasping, shaking.

(Frantically, he wipes the trickle of saliva away.)

He's just your regular university freshman.

Kaneki Ken is not a ghoul.

(But he's not human either. So _what_ is he?)

**. . .**

The thought of it is revolting.

He is playing a game of tug-of-war with himself—human morals on one side while the other, _ghoul_ instincts.

(The word is still bitter and foul in his mouth. His mind is pushing and refusing because no, he is _not_ a _monster_.)

But his sclerae are morphing into that despicable colour of unnatural ink black and his irises are _red_ with veins protruding from the center, spreading to the corners because he wants—_needs_ the food in front of him and he's very_very_ hungry—

He catches himself in time and flinches, taking many stuttering steps back, _away_, back.

The man stays silent. The untouched package in his still outstretched hand (_'take it, take it, take it,'_ _something would whisper in his ear_).

The girl clicks her tongue.

And he is lost.

**. . .**

Showers help him most of the time.

He turns the water to _boiling, scalding, boiling_ hot and he stays under the scorching rain longer than most would think necessary. Or healthy.

(In his opinion, his dependence on this is justified so he doesn't particularly care—simply a nicer way to say 'I don't give a damn'.)

His mind would drift away from reality and he would often wonder, thinking of things that don't really matter—an interesting book, his best friend, the almost empty shampoo bottle in front of him. Then the strain in his muscles would lessen, his breaths would be calmer and he would feel lighter.

It satisfies him. It calms him.

(Most of the time he pretends that the salt in his tongue is nothing but his imagination.)

**. . .**

He has this irresistible urge to punch every mirror in existence.

It's not exactly the mirror's fault—no, not really—but instead what it reflects back at him.

(He wants it badly gone and a punch would instantly fix this problem.)

'_You're abnormal. Get over it already, coward.'_

So Kaneki curses Rize and her stupidly pretty face framed by her stupidly pretty glasses for what seemed to be the umpteenth time from the moment he is revealed of what she truly was.

**. . .**

(in the end)

(all things break anyway)

**. . .**

He abandons his humanity for power.

(_Worse_, he thinks, _worse than a pile of trash._)

To him, his pale hair and darkened nails looks odd.

But fitting.

**. . .**

"I am a ghoul." He says.

(Strangely, the word doesn't disgust him now.)

**. . .**

Eating human meat is necessary.

He _needs_ his strength.

(For all he has left are—)

So he chews and swallows. Silently.

**. . .**

He doesn't have the strange urge to punch a mirror anymore.

He wonders, sometimes, why he did before he remembers.

(It slips away most of the time, like something foreign and misty. It's as if he had never fiercely clung and held it close until his knuckles would break in the first place.)

**. . .**

_A mad man's grin._

The mask is secured on his face.

(More of a symbol of what he is than anything else.)

**. . .**

_—end__—_

___**. . .**_

**a/n2:** son, you need a break so here's a bunch of tickets to forever happy land for as long as you live.


End file.
